The GEF Small Grants Programme

in Uzbekistan

Laser land leveling in Kashkadarya region

In the Kashkadarya region, there are about 1 million hectares of land suitable for irrigation, but due to lack of water, slightly more than 500 thousand hectares of land are being cultivated. However, even with the most efficient use of water, there is not enough water to irrigate many lands. The lack of water resources in the Kashkadarya region every year more and more jeopardizes agriculture.

While water is in short supply, in most cases there is an overuse of water by farmers at every possible time through the use of established but largely inefficient irrigation techniques. Excessive watering of land leads to the rise of salt from nearby groundwater. The area of ​​saline lands with close occurrence of groundwater in the Guzar region alone reaches 6.126 hectares, which is half of the flat irrigated lands. Inefficient irrigation practices exacerbate soil salinity and create water scarcity.

In the Kashkadarya region, as in other regions of the republic, the production of agricultural crops is possible only under the condition of irrigated agriculture. The fields are irrigated mainly by outdated methods using furrows and checks, and the effectiveness of these irrigation methods directly depends on the level of the field.

In order to ensure and improve the efficiency of agricultural activities, a modern and effective method, such as laser land leveling, is quite successfully used in world practice. This technology was used mainly for scientific purposes and did not reach wide application. One of the successful projects on this technology was the GEF SGP project on the introduction of this technology in the Khorezm region.

Carrying out laser planning in the Khorezm region

This is what we are talking about - when watering, with poor planning, part of the field is flooded with water, and water does not reach the other part

Unfortunately, today the farmers of the Kashkadarya region use only a rough layout of fields with a long wheelbase. Some have heard about laser planning, but no one practices it simply because of ignorance and poor awareness of the advantages of this technology.

The joint project of the GEF SGP and the UNDP project on climate risk management (in this case, water shortage) will address the issue of familiarizing the farmers of Kashkadarya with this technology. The project will demonstrate laser leveling technology in the Kashkadarya region, namely in Guzar, Karshi, Kamashin, Koson, Nishan and Chirokchi districts.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate to farmers in the Kashkadarya region the advantages of laser land leveling technology and alternative irrigation methods.

To achieve this goal, the project plans to perform the following tasks:

Task 1: Prepare and complete technical equipment (6 sets of equipment for 6 districts) for laser land leveling;

Task 2: Demonstrate the benefits of laser land leveling and alternative irrigation methods in demonstration plots;

Task 3: Dissemination of experience.

You can find the project document and project budget in the attached files below:

- Project application

- Project budget